Hospital birth – positive epidural story
Hannah completed my ‘Never too Late’ course over Zoom when she was in her final weeks of pregnancy. Even though hypnobirthing works best with some time to practise and work on your mindset, it really is never too late to learn some essentials about decision making during labour, birth environment and of course, some tools and techniques to help you during contractions.
This is the story of a woman who was in control, in possession of the facts about what pain relief was on offer, and able to make her own decisions. If you’re sceptical about hypnobirthing because you think it’s just for women who want a drug free birth, and you’re not sure if that’s you, Hannah’s story will show you that that’s not at all the point of hypnobirthing. Hypnobirthing is about women feeling empowered to birth the way they want to birth. When Hannah was kind enough to send me her birth story, I noticed language like ‘I decided’ being used throughout (an not one ‘I had to!) and that makes me so happy!
Well done Hannah and thank so much for sharing this birth story with me!
What I believed to be contractions started at 3am on the 31st of December, the day after my due date, however disappeared after a few hours and reappeared later that evening so we decided to ring the hospital. We saw the new year in at hospital being monitored but it was decided I probably wasn’t in labour as my contractions weren’t close enough together and was sent home at 2am…7:30am my waters broke!
We rang the hospital again and were told to come straight in. Once we arrived we were quickly seen to and sent to the delivery suite at 1cm dilated.
Prior to and going into labour I knew I wanted to get as far as I possibly could without any pain relief. However, told myself that despite this I must listen to my body and not deny myself any if I feel I really need it. A mixture of breathing techniques and eventually gas & air got me through until about 5pm whilst me and my partner listened to our favourite songs and made each other laugh to pass the time. At this time I decided to try some pain relief as I was only 5cm dilated and had been struggling with the pain. However I still didn’t want to go straight in for the epidural so opted for injected pain relief (can’t remember the name of this!). This gave me a nice rest break from the pain and helped me to relax before I was to continue breathing through the contractions. As the pain relief wore off I tried my best to stay calm and get myself through each wave however it got to the stage where my contractions were almost back to back and I was still only 7cm dilated at roughly 9pm. This is when I decided an epidural would be best going forward. The doctor was brought in and we talked through how it would all work and if I was definitely sure this is what I wanted. I was made to feel listened to and supported by the medical professionals around me and no pressure was put on me to make a decision.
This ended up being the best decision I could have made as it helped me to continue having an incredibly positive labour/birth.
The pain relief gave me and my partner the opportunity to have a little sleep before we welcomed our beautiful girl into the world.
When the time came, pushing took 16 minutes and felt like the easiest thing in the world as each push bought me closer to meeting our baby who eventually arrived at 6:46am on the 2nd of January weighing 6lb15oz..she was absolutely perfect.
I was able to have the golden hour with her which was amazing, even if she had pooed all down my arm! My partner cut the cord and much to the surprise of the midwives, I coughed and the placenta practically flew out of me which had the whole room laughing, just adding to the happy and joyful experience.
I’m so proud of how far I managed by myself and felt in control of what was happening the entire time which helped me to feel less scared about what was happening. Before giving birth I was absolutely terrified of what it would be like but now I can’t wait to do it again!
Interested in taking a hypnobirthing course? Read about the different courses I offer here.
Pea in the Pod Hypnobirthing 